Niantic has started permanently banning suspected Pokemon Go hackers

Niantic, the game developer of Pokémon Go, is now permanently banning players who are suspected of violating it’s terms of service. This includes players who have used GPS spoofing, bots, and other techniques that give trainers an unfair advantage. For the honest trainers who don’t know, GPS spoofing involves tricking your smartphone into thinking you’re located in a different area, possibly a different state or even a different country. Meanwhile, bots allow you to automate parts of the game.

In a statement put out by Niantic earlier this week, they stated that “Our goal is to provide a fair, fun and legitimate game experience for everyone. We will continue to work with all of you to improve the quality of the gameplay, including ongoing optimization and fine tuning of our anti-cheat system.”

Paired with server outages across the country, Pokémon Trainers have been a little on edge. If you are trying to log on only to discover you have been wrongly banned, don’t lose hope just yet. Niantic has set up a ban appeal page for trainers to reactive their account. It may take longer than you’d like, but it still beats starting over.

Keep in mind, if you do not see the “Account Banned” title, your account has not necessarily been banned. There are still numerous reports of server outages. Check in with our server status page to see where your country stands!